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Previous Feedback about Tengeru Refugee Camp

Started by nTZ, 07 July, 2009, 17:19

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nTZ


Tengeru





Herne, Brian White Hunters: The golden age of African Safaris
Page Number: 202a
Extract Date: 1907
Kenyon Painter invests in Arusha

After German East Africa became Tanganyika, one of its most significant investors was Kenyon Painter, an Ohio entrepreneur who first came to Arusha on a safari in 1907. He bought 11,000 acres of land outside the town and developed the region's premier coffee estate. He gave the town its first post office, built a church, a hospital, and then an advanced coffee research center at a place called Tengeru, sixteen miles from Arusha. Painter invested eleven million dollars in and around Arusha. His single storey New Arusha Hotel was one of the regions's most noted landmarks, and was headquarters for the Tanganyika Tours and Safaris Company.
Extract ID: 3428



Ulyate Family Personal Communications
Extract Author: Bob Walker
Page Number: 504b
Arriving in Arusha

Grandfather Ray Ulyate was to leave Elmenteita in Kenya in 1923 for Arusha with his young family. He was to purchase a Custodian of Enemy Property coffee farm, Meru Estate outside of Arusha at Lake Duluti. During the (1939-45) war a part of the farm was to become a Polish refugee camp [Tengeru?]. Today the farm is the Headquarters of the Tanzania Department of National Parks and Wild Life

Grandfather Ray was to farm at Meru Estate until 1928 when the coffee market prices and world recession made it virtually impossible for him to carry on farming.
Extract ID: 4743




Extract Author: Diane Winkler
Page Number: 2005 02 23
Extract Date: 1940's
Researching Kidugala

I am researching for a book I plan to write about those Polish nationals who were deported by Stalin in 1939 and after a long odyssey finally shipped to East Africa and lived in the fugitive camp of Kidugala in Tanzania. I myself stayed in Kidugala from 1972 to 1974 as a child and saw the Polish graves on the cemetery. I am very interested in first hand reports and above all any pictures. I am aware of the existence of The General Longfitt Story and have read it. It would be wonderful if I could get into contact with the authors. So far I haven't been lucky with this.

Can you help?

I am a historian but also personally involved and very, very keen to write about these people.

Not sure how to help really. I presume that you followed the links on the General Langfitt back to the Australian Immigration web site. Have you tried emailing any contact names there for more information.

Look carefully at the various links on the Tengeru page, and some may take you to other sites with more information on the various Polish camps in Africa.

I guess you are interested in Kidugala because you stayed there - in much the same way as I remember visiting Tengeru as a child, although totally unaware of its background. However the Polish story seems a lot more complex than just these individual camps.

If I come across anything else I'll let you know. I'll include your email on the website, and that might invoke some memories, and do please let me know if you come across anything related to Tengeru etc.
Extract ID: 5041



Extract Author: Christine Melady-Knox
Page Number: 2007 06 13
Extract Date: 1940's

I read all of the email entries regarding Tengeru with interst.

My Mother Anna Maria Ciura, her parents Andrezj and Marysia along with my aunts Paolina, Janina, Sofia and Jan lived in Arusha for at least 5 years.

My father Staff Sargent Raymond Francis Melady( East Yorkshire Regiment, stationed in Nairobi) met and Married at Holy Family Roman Catholic Church.

I have dozens of pictures from that time but a better source for those looking for information regarding the displaced Poles is a book 'Stolen Childhood' written by Lucjan Krolikowski, there are tons of picutres and stories. Many of these Polish people ended up in Canada and there are many in Sarnia, Ontario and they started up the Polish Catholic Church Queen of Peace.

Although many have died, we their children know their stories and cherish the knowledge that finally in Tengeru, healing for many of them started and they were able to emigrate to Canada, America and Australia among many welcoming countries.
Extract ID: 5410



Department of Research and Development, Ministry of Agriculture, & Food, Tanzania
Extract Date: 1942
Tengeru Horticultural Research and Training Institute (HORTI)

The history of Tengeru dates back to 1942, when a group of Polish refugees settled there during the 2nd World War, starting a dairy and beef cattle farm.

In 1952 the Ministry of Agriculture took over the land and established a research and training institute. The research component was destined to become the Northern Research Centre (NRC), specialising in coffee and agricultural mechanisation. Seed testing begun there in 1961, and two years later the Seed Testing Laboratory became a member of the International Seed Testing Association.
Extract ID: 3799



Fosbrooke, Henry Arusha Integrated Regional Development Plan
Page Number: 32b
Extract Date: 1920's
Other Urban Development

Paper III. Urban Development & the Growth of Communications

Arusha is the only large scale urban development in the region. Mbulu was established as a German administrative centre, and became the British headquarters for the Mbulu District. Oldeani developed as a trading centre when the German settlement started there in the late 1920's. Babati served that section of the Mbulu District which lay below the Rift (now the Hanang District). There were a few European settlers in the vicinity but the few shops were dependant on the local African producer, as well as serving the passing traffic on the "Great North Road".

The site of Monduli was a farm alienated in German times, and acquired by the Government when a headquarters was being sought for the newly established Masai District in 1929.

A more recent development is the Tengeru complex, which started as a Polish Refugee Camp established on a German Farm to house 6000 refugees which the Tanganyika Government agreed to accept in 1942. After the departure of the refugees, the Government used the site to develop an Agricultural Research Station with a Soil Conservation Service. The Game Department was also housed there. On the establishment of Arusha as the capital of the East African Community the buildings were handed over for community use and the agricultural work was abandoned. Adjacent to Tengeru a considerable rural service centre has grown up on a German Farm bought by the Government for Meru expansion. It now contains a teaching training college, an expanding health centre, and in the shopping and market area an iron welding workshop and a carpenters shop equiped with modern machinery.
Extract ID: 3235



Extract Author: Andrew Kennedy (Drohomirecki)
Page Number: 2009 02 03
Extract Date: 1942 - 1948
Tengeru 1942 - 1948

Mother and I were in Tengeru Polish camp during that period.

I have a collection of photos of that period and location. If of interest please contact me
Extract ID: 5956



Extract Author: Barbara Epler Matuchniak
Page Number: 2008 03 07
Extract Date: 1942-1948
Tengeru

I am working on the book about Tengeru where I spent 6 years since Novemver 1942 to October 1948.

I have lived in archives, both Polish an British in London for the past several years, and have considerable amount of documentary knowledge. Unfortunatelly some of the information that appears on internet lacks authenticity and even misinforms.

I am greatly interested in any photographs as they speak volumes, more than words.

Thereforo any photos will be greatly aqppreciated. I am so pleased that there are people, here that seek to know the truth and not just tell tales.
Extract ID: 5598



Nettelbeck, David A history of Arusha School, Tanzania
Page Number: 26
Extract Date: 1934-64
d. A FAMILY AFFAIR:

To what extent does a headmaster leave his mark upon a school? In the case of the first two heads of Arusha School, who served the school for over 28 years between them from 1934 - 1964, the influence was considerable and each left his own indelible impression on the structure, organisation and ethos of the place.

It must be said right at the outset that Wynn Jones did not have outstanding gifts of organisation or administration. Also in the years 1940 - 42 he had been already nominated Assistant Bishop of the Diocese, there was a chronic staff shortage in the early years of the war when enrolments increased because many children could not return to Europe, and he was part time chaplain to the forces as well as Headmaster of the school. It is little wonder then that Lace found the school not well organised, only fair academically, and sloppy in discipline. In true military fashion he introduced daily physical education and tightened up the rules.

However, those who knew Wynn Jones comment universally on his gifts of leadership, personal magnetism and outstanding empathy with people.

The original school building, with 2 internal quadrangles, enclosed under one roof quarters for all staff, boys' and girls' dormitories, classrooms, kitchen and dining room with the headmaster's home on the first floor. It was quite literally a family unit with staff having all meals with the pupils, and the school kitchen even remaining open through the holidays for the teachers.

At a time when the British community had little social intercourse with European aliens, let alone Africans, Wynn Jones' home was open to all. There was a time during the war when some British residents reported him to the Governor as being anti-British, because he gave a bed to some passing German and Greek travellers.

Many of the pupils said, "He loved us like one of his own children", and stories abound about how he welded the school together as a family. One notable story comes from the day war was declared, He called an assembly of the school and while the children were moving in selected, apparently at random, the German children to retrieve his hat from the far side of the playing field. While they were away, he talked to the others, announced the declaration of war and said, "Here at Arusha School we have always been a family; we don't know what will happen in the future or what will become of our houses and families, but here, we are a family still and will treat each other that way".

His role as a loving, gentle man and a reconciler may be seen in the bridge-building he attempted between the communities. For example between 1934 and 1939 he organised an annual conference of teachers from the European schools in the Northern province. The conference was informal with no official status, but teachers from Arusha School, the 2 Greek Schools, 4 Dutch schools and. 2 German schools met together to read papers and discuss their problems.

He also organised and hosted an annual athletics competition between these schools. In 1937 he led a combined camp in Ngorongoro Crater for the Arusha School Scout Troup and the Hitler Youth Movement from the Oldeani German School. He wrote in the school log. "This was a genuine effort to bring the boys of different nationalities together and to stem what was becoming a very tense position in Northern Tanganyika. The Governor was in every way enthusiastic about the move". Inter-community contacts continued during the war and included children from the Polish school for refugees newly settled near Arusha.
Extract ID: 4932



Allbrook, Maryon and Cattalini, Helen The General Langfitt Story
Page Number: Chapter 5
The General Langfitt Story. Chapter 5 - Dispersal (continued)

Tengeru settlement, Tanganyika (Tanzania) (Courtesy of Barbara Kaluzynska)

Tadek Gruszka and his family arrived in Dar-es-Salaam in 1944, when he was 6 years old. He did his first two years of schooling at the settlement in Morogoro, in Tanganyika, before being moved to Ifunda, where there were some eight hundred residents, for another two and a half years, and then Tengeru. He remembers his time in Africa as:

    a very good life for young people, although I didn't like school very much. Africa was something different and there were a lot of things to do in the camps.

    We used to go to a club - like a YMCA drop-in centre where people could get together and play games and we kids could go into the jungle and chase the monkeys. In 1946 we were moved to Ifunda where one of my brothers died. He had a cancerous growth and they couldn't do anything to save him, not in those days in the middle of the bush. I made a lot of friends in Ifunda and about four or five of us young boys used to go out to the African villages to buy eggs or a chicken when we had some money. We learnt Kiswahili quite quickly so we could speak with the villagers a little.

    We were just boys who went to the bush and had a good time. Swimming, taking the dogs hunting, anything. It was great. I used to know a lot of boys from the orphanage. I think they went to New Zealand or Venezuela. They were poor kids who went all over the world. It was quite sad because we lost friends when people were sent to different camps. We were moved to Tengeru for our last two years in Africa because there were not enough people in the smaller camps.

Janusz Smenda had a somewhat different tale to recount. Initially he went to Tengeru with his mother and sister but after completing his first year of high school they received notification from the Polish Consulate in Tanganyika that the South African government was offering five places to students from Tengeru at the Pietermaritzburg College in Natal.

    My mother said that this was my chance to get out of a ghetto, to get out of the refugee mentality and to learn a language. I'd had malaria and a lot of other health problems which I was just getting over and I'd started enjoying life so I didn't want to leave. But I thought about it and decided to do it. We had to work very hard, harder because of the language although we were exempt from learning Afrikaans.

    The boarding school rigour was pretty severe. We were denied hot water for showers because it was considered good for us to have cold showers to harden our bodies. This wasn't conducive to good hygiene because all the boys would just rush under the shower and splash a bit of water around. We got there just as the war was ending and there were still food shortages. We found that boarding school fare was skimpy and terribly unappetising.

    Other than that, it was a delightful life simply because we had all the things that other kids in refugee camps didn't. We were well accepted both by teachers and other students. Most of us found life in Natal far more exciting than life in the camp, the only minus was being away from families. First of all there were cinemas, concerts and libraries, which did not exist in the camps initially, and there were swimming pools. The whole experience helped me tremendously because I spoke English more fluently than anyone when we came to Australia and that made it easier for me to get work and adapt.

After leaving school, Janusz Smenda found clerical work in Durban, where he also studied two units of accountancy. Earning too little to go on to university studies there, and unable to bring his mother and sister to South Africa to join him, he returned to Tengeru, believing that he had a chance of receiving a scholarship to study in England. The offer from the Australian immigration authorities in Deember 1949 changed their plans.

Tengeru settlement, in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, was the largest of the Polish settlements in Africa, accommodating up to approximately 4000 people (Królikowski, 1983, p. 85). Many of its residents spent up to eight years living there, and saw it transformed from a small jungle outpost into a thriving little metropolis, 'full of laughter and noise' because of all the women and children. Barbara Kaluzynska was 12 years old when she arrived there with her mother, and nearly 20 when she left.

    When we arrived, there were just a few round huts and a few kitchens. The huts were just a big room made of mud bricks and covered with banana leaves. They were nice and cool in summer and quite warm in winter. At the beginning in each hut there were four African beds (a frame with strings across it and a mattress), two tables, a lamp, bedding for four, one plate, one fork and one cup, knives and forks for four people. We were quite inventive and made furniture from cases and wardrobes from blankets. At first we shared a hut with another woman and her son but later we were given separate houses because both the women were teachers and had a lot of work to do. More houses were built and all the people who lived there did whatever they could to improve things.

Eventually Tengeru would grow to include a hospital, an orphanage for some 600 children, community halls, a beautiful church and a school of about twenty buildings which catered for primary and secondary students and taught the arts and science subjects, as well as containing a school of mechanics, an agricultural college, a commercial school and a domestic science school. The aim was to prepare the children for their uncertain futures but their education took place outside the classrooms as much as within. The Scouting movement ensured that there were regular excursions to places of interest in the region, including one-day walking tours, camps at a local farm and safaris to Olduvai Gorge and the N'Goro N'Goro volcanic crater. Many people recounted their encounters with Africa's famed wild life with undiluted pleasure: lions, elephants, rhinoceros, monkeys, as well as the beautiful bird life, the snakes and insects were a source of fascination for many of the youngsters. As several people commented, they took risks which make them shudder now, with the benefit of hindsight! After their experiences in the Soviet Union, life in Tengeru was benign.

    We didn't have to worry about living conditions as we were secure. My mother was a qualified teacher but before the war had never taught because she had married early. Some taught without qualifications. Our teachers were very dedicated people and really looked after us, so if you wanted to learn you could. School was the focus for the children but for leisure time there were Scouts and Girl Guides, church activities, dances for the young people, choirs and a theatrical society - we had everything there.

    Most Poles are Catholics. There were a few priests and we built a beautiful church ourselves. School children were supposed to go to church every Sunday. We were very strictly brought up. Girls, even at sixteen and seventeen, were expected to be home at ten o'clock, and there were very few older boys there because they mainly went to the army.

    The camps were run by UNRRA at first and then the IRO. If you had a job you got paid and if you didn't work you got pocket money of ten shillings a month and rations. I was lucky that I did English for my matriculation, and I started reading English books quite early so I got a job as a clerk/interpreter in a little town called Arusha, about 18 kilometres from the camp. Later on I worked at the quartermaster's office as a clerk/interpreter in English/Polish. Life was very pleasant and quiet and there were few worries. (Barbara Kaluzynska)

Kazimierz Sosnowski arrived in Tengeru on his own, having been unable to find his mother in Tehràn.

    I realised I couldn't survive on my own so I went to the orphanage, where I lived for fifteen months, where at least I had regular meals every day. To me life in the orphanage was normal but when you start analysing things you realise it was a different experience. Each group had a caretaker and they had their favourites. I was never anyone's favourite! I was in the middle age group but I was the tallest. Being tall, not old, they expected me to do quite a bit of work for the smaller children. We were living in two big dormitories with eleven beds in each dormitory and in between was a room where the caretaker lived. I had to take care of the younger group. Life in the orphanage - well you just did what you were told.

    Mother arrived in Tengeru on 17 April 1944 and we have been together ever since. I finished primary school in Tengeru, and then went to mechanical school for three years when I was fifteen to eighteen years old. We learnt in very primitive conditions. There were not enough books for twenty-three boys. We had five books on mechanical subjects, three books for mathematics, and the teacher had to have one of these. One teacher was a qualified mechanic, there were two village blacksmiths, one qualified carpenter, one qualified joinery-maker, two well-qualified fitters. The workshop was very poorly equipped so we had to make our own tools. We were the first group of boys so we had to make everything, including our workshops.

    I had several jobs after I left technical school, first as a water-pumping-station attendant in Kenya. Then I worked in a garage near Tengeru for a few months. Then there was no work, so I left and went to work in a timber mill but they didn't want a worker, they wanted someone who would supply them with females so I left. I got work on a farm as a tractor driver for two years and after that I went to Kenya again, working on the farms as a farm supervisor. I very much enjoyed my time in Africa. The scenery, the mountains, the wild animals and youthful life. Apart from malaria I didn't have any health problems. Malaria was the biggest problem in Africa.

On top of malaria, there were recurrent problems with tropical ulcers and most people gave accounts of the sand fleas which plagued the settlement at the start. These nasty little mites would creep under toe nails where they laid eggs which would grow, causing painful septic sores if the egg pouches were not removed early enough. Several people, especially children who swam regularly in Lake Daluti, contracted bilharzia, a vicious parasitic disease caused by flatworm larvae which could lodge in the intestine or bladder for years before causing major health problems. Teresa Sedzmir (nèe Smenda) discovered that she had contracted bilharzia after she had been in Australia for twenty-two years.

    There were a number of kids from Tengeru, my age and a little bit older, who died in their twenties and early thirties. Doctors couldn't work out why. I am sure they were the victims of bilharzia. Afterwards so many of us still had it because in Africa at that time, they either cured you in a matter of months or you died.


Extract ID: 3802



Extract Author: George Brzostowski
Page Number: 2004 01 16
Extract Date: 1946
Tengeru

Dear Ryszard,

Thank you for a very interesting site on Tengeru. I was came across it casually while looking for something on Momela.

Tengeru is where I was born in 1946. My parents were among the displaced Poles. My mother was a sister in the hospital.

It is with some joy that I can say that while my mother is in Canberra, Australia, I found out about a lady living in Queanbeyan, just outside Canberra, who was also working in Tengeru. The two ladies are now very close friends!

My parents and I spent a few years on Momela that was owned by Mrs Trappe at the time. It was an exceptional place where Germans and Poles got on very well - indeed one of Mrs Trappe's married a Polish girl. There are two books on Momela. One is in German - "Am Fusse des Meru" and the other in English, called simply "Momela"

I will never forget living on the slopes of the foothills of Meru, and having the privilege of watching Kilimanjaro look enormous as the sun was setting behind us to the West.

That was back in the late 40s and perhaps early 50s. We then moved to Kongwa, near Dodoma, where my father was a pasture research scientist.

Later we moved to Canberra. Unfortunately my father passed away in 1976 while he was still working for the CSIRO. For my part, I am a Barrister.

Thank you once again for your site and work in compiling this interesting up-date on what happened at Tengeru.

Regards,

George Brzostowski
Extract ID: 4666



Extract Author: Jayne Ferrier
Page Number: 2005 02 06
Extract Date: 7-8-1950
names of ships

My polish family were in ifunda Tengeru, they left there 7-8-1950 from dar es salaam to sail to the uk, no.t281,

is there a list of ships that left at that time, or any information on the names of people that were in the camps.

thankyou

Jayne

I'm sorry, but I have no immediate information which might help you.

I'll put your email on the web site, and maybe there will be a response from someone who can help.

Maybe the researchers behind the General Langfitt story http://www.immi.gov.au/research/publications/langfitt/

May be able to help, but I have no more idea about how to contact them

Good luck in your enquiries, and if you find any information which may be of interest to other, please do pass it on for publication on the web site.
Extract ID: 4984



Department of Research and Development, Ministry of Agriculture, & Food, Tanzania
Extract Date: 1942
Tengeru Horticultural Research and Training Institute (HORTI)

The history of Tengeru dates back to 1942, when a group of Polish refugees settled there during the 2nd World War, starting a dairy and beef cattle farm.

In 1952 the Ministry of Agriculture took over the land and established a research and training institute. The research component was destined to become the Northern Research Centre (NRC), specialising in coffee and agricultural mechanisation. Seed testing begun there in 1961, and two years later the Seed Testing Laboratory became a member of the International Seed Testing Association.
Extract ID: 3799



Marsh, R.J. & E.P. Photos of Arusha Environs
Page Number: 002
Extract Date: 1953-57

Tengeru Church at the Natural Resources School, with 400 African students, about 1/2 are 'Christian'. This church was built by Polish Refugees is now used by Protestant and Roman Churches

A Government school a few miles from Arusha, where over 400 African students are trained in the arts of agriculture, animal husbandry and forestry.

The story of the church in which these students worship is an interesting sidelight on the variety of life in Tanganyika. The present building was erected by Polish internees, encamped in this area at the close of the war, for their own worship. When the school was commenced here, the interest of the principal secured the continuance of the church as a place of worship, but on condition that it became available for all Christian groups. The result was that the Roman Catholics used one end, and Protestants of all denominations the other end, of the building with an entrance into the centre. Meanwhile, until the completion of a new hall, the school also use the church as an assembly hall for many official occasions.

Extract ID: 3366





Extract Author: Alex King
Page Number: 2007 11 13
Stan Fourie

Jambo!, Ivan Da Silva was at Tengeru with me (Alex King) and Pater Hamblin.

I was in Mr Goslings class with Mark Lott, Peter Elerby, Louis Van Royan (Spelling?)

My Mum taught there too Mrs King, its a real buzz to find this site.
Extract ID: 5506




Extract Author: Robert Weiss, Palo Alto, California
Extract Date: 8 February 1998
Polish Children's Home Oudtshoorn, South Africa 1942-1947 (Draft:)

Background

The following is a roster of the 500 Polish children who were removed from Poland and sent to an orphanage in the Union of South Africa, where they remained until after the conclusion of the Second World War. There is great interest on the part of Holocaust survivors in determining their origins, especially difficult task when information on their parents or their place of origin is unknown. I hope the publication of this list may help in their search.

History

On 17 September 1939, two weeks after the German invasion of Poland, Soviet troops swiftly occupied the eastern half of Poland and, after a plebiscite, annexed the area to the Ukraine and Belorussia. Beginning in the winter of 1939-40 Soviet authorities deported over a million Poles, many of them children, to the various provinces in the Soviet Union. Almost one third of the deportees were Jewish.

For a description of the life of the deportees during this period the reader is referred to the Hoover Archival Documentary War Through Children's Eyes, a collection of essays written by the children like the subjects of this paper.

In the summer of 1941 the Polish government in exile in London received permission from the Soviet Union to release several hundred thousand former Polish citizens from labor camps, prisons and forcible resettlement in the Soviet Union, to organize military units among the Polish deportees, and later to transfer Polish civilians to camps in the British-controlled Middle East and Africa. There the Polish children were able to attend Polish schools.

In 1942, the London government, acting through their Consul General Dr. Mi. Stanislaw Lepkowski, secured permission from the government of the Union of South Africa to transport 500 of the estimated 220-250,000 children to that country. In 1943, after they had been evacuated through the southern Soviet republics to Iran, the children were brought to South Africa.

The Polish Children's Home (Dom Polskich Dzieci) was organized in Oudtshoorn for their temporary accommodation, care and education. Under the supervision of the South African Department of Social Welfare, as well as Polish consular and ministry representatives, it remained in operation until 1947.

[snip]

Also in October of 1944, arrangements were made with the East African Refugee Administration to transfer another small group of nine children to Polish camps in Bwana Mkubwa, Abercorn and Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia to rejoin their families. The transfer took place early in 1945.

Some time in 1944 another, large, transfer was made of 115 children to camps in Kenya. The lists document the entry into Kenya of 43 children to Camps in Tengeru, 43 to Masindi, 21 to Koja, 5 to Ifunda, 1 to Morongo or Rongai and 2 to Kidugala.
Extract ID: 3798





Internet Web Pages
Extract Author: Ryszard Antolak
Extract Date: Jan 28, 2003
Tengeru

Last February, while on holiday to East Africa, my wife and I happened to be passing through the the beautiful city of Arusha in Tanzania which, at that time of the year, was awash with bright flowers. I suddenly remembered the stories my mother and grandmother had told me about the Polish resettlement camp at Tengeru, where they had spent several years. It was somewhere near Arusha.

I asked our Tanzanian driver whether he knew anything about a place called Tengeru, or about any Polish camp. Yes indeed, he answered. There was a small district outside Arusha called Tengeru. He would be able to take us there. But knowing nothing about a Polish camp, he stopped at a local police-station to enquire for us. The friendly Tanzanian policeman was very helpful. He knew all about the Polish camp; gave us directions and phoned ahead to prepare for our arrival. The old site of the Polish camp, we learned, now lay within the grounds of a large argricultural college. We needed special permission to enter it.

Turning in from the busy road, we drove down a beautifully tree-lined road in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro. The road was narrow and uneven, causing the landrover to bounce up and down. Bananas grew all around us in rich abundance.

Half-way down the lane, a tall elderly Tanzanian in a torn jacket and strange fur-lined hat stood waiting for us. He was to be our guide for the last mile-or-so of our journey. He spoke no English, but told us through our interpreter (the driver) that he could remember the time when the Poles were here in the 1940s.

Finally, we came to halt. The old man took my hand, led me out of the landrover, and pointed into the distance with a long bony finger. Before us was a white circular wall with a metal gate. Three Tanzanian women stood before it with bunches of keys. They welcomed us, unlocked the gates, and we were able to enter.

It was a large cemetery: all that remained of the Polish compound. Near the entrance, a simple stone monument told (in Polish, English and Swahili) that these were the graves of Poles who had died in exile. There were two-or-three hundred headstones within the walls, each one clean and bleached white in the hot African sun. A scattering of broad trees here and there gave some welcome shade.

I walked among the headstones, reading the Polish names and the dates, looking at the Roman and Orthodox crosses, (as well as the few Stars of David) carved clearly upon them. The most recent dated from 1963! All of the stones were beautifully clean. Only a few strands of dried yellow grass grew, here and there, among them. I couldn't discover who tended these graves, but they had been lovingly looked after.

It was a very emotional experience. So many Polish names! So many who had died on foreign African soil without being able to return home! My eyes began to fill with tears. The old man, who all this time had been standing respectively at the gates, came towards me. He, too, had tears in his eyes. He embraced me tightly. He told me that he remembered the Polish inhabitants of the camp with affection. Many times he had gone there with his mother to sell bananas.

"Does anyone ever come here to visit?" I asked him.

"No", he explained through our 'interpreter'. Although we learned that a film crew from Poland had arrived several months earlier to shoot footage for a documentary. Apart from that, no-one came.

"And who looks after the graves?" I enquired.

The old man did not understand, but smiled, showing the gaps in his teeth. He embraced me again. I thanked him warmly and pressed a few dollars into his hand. He smiled, nodded his head. and disappeared.

We took a few photographs and then returned slowly to the landrover, meditating on this often-forgotten episode of buried Polish history. Even surrounded by the lush vegetation and fertile red soil of this part of Tanzania, it was a sad and lonely place.

Ryszard Antolak
Extract ID: 3800




Colwell, Christine Personal communication
Extract Author: Christine Colwell
Page Number: 2004 08 26
Extract Date: 2004 08 26
My aunt Antonina nee Bujalska

Have read through a number of very interesting articles related to Tengeru. However, wish to say that my aunt Antonina nee Bujalska was in Tengeru. She, her sister, cousins and mother were all there for a number of years from 1942 on. My "Ciocia Tosia" died last year in September at the age of 90 and left me photos of her years in Africa. Should you be interested in these I would be very pleased to "zap" you some on the e-mail.

One aspect does puzzle me - who established the camp in Tengeru and who was in charge of daily administration and financing"

I appear to be learning a great deal more from the internet sites rather than from the tales my aunt provided - I was always so careful not to upset her or ask an inappropriate question.
Extract ID: 4730



Colwell, Christine Personal communication
Extract Author: David Marsh
Page Number: 2004 08 27
Extract Date: 2004 08 27
Reply

Many thanks for your interesting family information about Tengeru. I shall add it to the database ready for the next update.

And do please send whatever photos you think will be of interest to other people about Tengeru. Let me know exactly who should be credited.

As for who funded the camp:

Here's part of what I found at

http://feefhs.org/pl/orphan/orphant.html

    In the summer of 1941 the Polish government in exile in London received permission from the Soviet Union to release several hundred thousand former Polish citizens from labor camps, prisons and forcible resettlement in the Soviet Union, to organize military units among the Polish deportees, and later to transfer Polish civilians to camps in the British-controlled Middle East and Africa. There the Polish children were able to attend Polish schools.

    In 1942, the London government, acting through their Consul General Dr. Mi. Stanislaw Lepkowski, secured permission from the government of the Union of South Africa to transport 500 of the estimated 220-250,000 children to that country. In 1943, after they had been evacuated through the southern Soviet republics to Iran, the children were brought to South Africa.

    The Polish Children's Home (Dom Polskich Dzieci) was organized in Oudtshoorn for their temporary accommodation, care and education. Under the supervision of the South African Department of Social Welfare, as well as Polish consular and ministry representatives, it remained in operation until 1947.

    [snip]

    Also in October of 1944, arrangements were made with the East African Refugee Administration to transfer another small group of nine children to Polish camps in Bwana Mkubwa, Abercorn and Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia to rejoin their families. The transfer took place early in 1945.

    Some time in 1944 another, large, transfer was made of 115 children to camps in Kenya. The lists document the entry into Kenya of 43 children to Camps in Tengeru, 43 to Masindi, 21 to Koja, 5 to Ifunda, 1 to Morongo or Rongai and 2 to Kidugala.

I'm sure you can find more in the General Langfitt story

http://www.immi.gov.au/research/publications/langfitt/index.htm

It's not clear to me whether the funding was from the Polish Government in Exile, or ultimately from UK, or even US.

Equally, at Tengeru, I've no idea how much autonomy the Polish people had in the finance and running of the camp, or how much was supported by the British administration locally, or the Colonial Office (or the War Department) in London.

Do let me know of anything you are able to find out.

It's sad that there are always questions we wish we had asked of our parents, aunts and uncles, before it was too late. And I'm sure there are many memories now lost about such fascinating bits of our history, such as the Tengeru camp.

From my youth, I remembered Tengeru as being to the north of the road between Arusha and Moshi, and have retraveled that road many times in the last few years without seeing any sign of Tengeru. It was only on my last trip that we suddenly realised that the road had been rebuilt and now follows a course north of Tengeru. So next time I visit I shall know to look South for the location of the camp.

Extract ID: 4731



Colwell, Christine Personal communication
Extract Author: Christine Colwell
Page Number: 2004 08 28a
Extract Date: 2004 08 28
Photos

Thanks for your prompt reply and information. I'm certain you quite likely have sufficient "snapshots" of Tengeru. However, given the very small photos - black and white which I'm forwarding - quality is definitely dubious. The attached are the only ones that I would consider directly related to the camp. I have others which are wonderful photos of the Masai and Mount Meru, glaciers and elephant hunts - which I can photocopy on a laser printer or duplicate in a higher quality and send to you rather than cramming up the e-mail network. In terms of accreditation - heaven knows whose Brownie Box Camera snapped them up almost 60 years ago! There are a number of photos from Karachi - would anyone be interested?

I have no idea where I got the notion that you were in Australia - General Langfitt no doubt. We live in Victoria, on Vancouver Island in British Columbia Canada. Should you want the other related photos, please provide your mailing address and I'll be happy to send them "snail mail".
Extract ID: 4732



Extract Author: Eugeniusz Rzewuski
Page Number: 2007 04 04
Extract Date: 2007
Tengeru

Just today I read some e-mail correspondance posted to http://www.ntz.info concerning the former camp of Polish WW2 refugees in Tengeru, Tanzania. Many people do discover this place and its symbolic history of being a safe haven for nearly 5 thousand Polish children and their elder relatives and caretakers evacuated by the Polish army from places of their deportation in Soviet Union. Some visitors are amazed that the Polish cemetery adjacent to the former refugee camp is so well maintained.

I am glad to inform that this place is under permanent care of the Polish Embassy in Dar es Salaam.

Sincerely yours

Eugeniusz Rzewuski,

University of Warsaw,

Department of African Languages and Cultures

former charge d' affaires a.i. of the Embassy (1995-99)

Many thanks for your feedback about Tengeru. It is one of the sections of the web site that causes a lot of interest, and there is a new generation of people trying to unearth the history of their parents, many of whom spent time at Tengeru.

Although I've been to Arusha many times, I've never managed to visit Tengeru. Thank you for your update about the cemetry.

I'm sure you are familiar with sites such as http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Kresy-Siberia/ - Someone refered this to me only a week ago as a place with lots of information about Tengeru, including photographs.

Jambo David (Daudi)

Thanks for your reply letter. I am glad that there is much interest about "Polish chapter" of the history of Tengeru. In fact this was one of many WW2 Polish camps camps located in East and Central Africa. I have visited and documented four other Polish cemeteries in Tanzania which which mark places where camps were located: Morogoro, Kidugala, Ifunda, Kondoa-Irangi. All are reasonably well mantained. Tengeru was the the biggest camp and remains the biggest cemetery.
Extract ID: 5354




Extract Author: John Szabanowicz
Page Number: 2007 07 31
Extract Date: 31-Jul-2007
Szabanowicz Family

Hello. I just came across your site whilst trying to find out more about my Family background.

My mother Emily (now 77) and her Family were Polish refugees based in Tengeru and I'm trying to find people that may have known them.

The Family name is Szabanowicz and the Family consisted of my grandmother Maria and her five children, Helena, Fatima, Mina (Emily), Jacob and Adam. My mother and her youngest brother Adam are now the only survivors.

If anyone has any knowledge of them or can recall the Family, I would be grateful to hear from them.
Extract ID: 5428




Arusha Times
Extract Author: Elisha Mayallah
Page Number: 558
Extract Date: 14 March 2009
Journey to the Polish Refugees Cemetery in Tengeru

Arusha's unpredictable March rain had taken a brief reprieve when I had the intriguing invitation from Mr. Willy Lyimo, Branch Manager of Tanzania Tourist Board in Arusha. "Visit Tengeru and write about the historical site to World War II when Polish refugees found their way to Africa", said Mr. Lyimo. My answer: "Sure, why not""

The temperature was over 26 degrees C, at ten that Wednesday morning. The heat compounded by the warm air coming through the countryside under the topography of Mount Meru, 4566 m, the small-town of Tengeru was alive when my friend Mshana and I arrived at the market. The sprawling banana and coffee farms nearby offered a welcoming sighting for a visitor"s eye.

Tengeru offers a busy market on Wednesdays and Saturdays and the residents mainly farmers spread their farm produces on stalls and walkways. The delightful pedestrian area of Tengeru market and its environs offers some great shopping bargains. The elaborate shoppers out for groceries will be impressed to find huge and various greens on sale, mostly selling at half the price comparing with other markets in the neigbourhood.

But never having heard of a Polish cemetery before and against the background of Mount Meru, which dominated the horizon, we sought out anyone who might know of the Cemetery of Polish War Refugees as we drove past the Livestock Training Institute [LITI].

We stopped a pedestrian along the road who was very helpful. Fortunately he knew all about the Polish cemetery and gave us directions. We drove down a beautiful lane bordered on both sides by ancient and very lofty trees. The road was narrow and uneven while bananas and coffee plants grew all around in the fertile soil.

Finally, we came to halt. Before us was a whitewashed wall with a metal gate. The site of the Polish cemetery, we learned, it is nearly 16 kms away from Arusha and lay within the grounds of a former large agricultural college developed by the Polish refugees, and now called Livestock Training Institute.

"And so it began in 1942, when Soviet Russia became an American ally in the fight against Hitler. During the Second World War, thousands of Polish citizens had travelled out of the Siberian work camps across Russia, Persia, Iran and India," Said Simon Joseph, the guide at the cemetery, while unlocking the cemetery gates.

A large cemetery came into view surrounded by a wall gate with 150 graves scattered all over. Near the entrance, a simple stone monument written (in Polish, English and Swahili) that these were the graves of Polish exiles who had been unable to return to their homeland.

We walked among the headstones with the guide Joseph for some time, reading the Polish names and dates, looking at the Roman and Orthodox crosses, (as well as the few Stars of David) carved upon them.

All the stones were beautifully clean and Simon"s father, Joseph Andrea who is now 103 years old, was the former guide who handed over the keys to his son eight years ago. It was interesting to learn that it is the same family that has been behind the upkeep of this memorable and special historical site.

According to Simon the Polish escape began when they considered Siberia as a hostile territory. And then the International Refugee Organization and the British government finally found a safe place for these wandering Poles. Their next stop was East Africa.

Around Christmas 1942, the International Refugees Organization made preparations to transport Polish refugees to Tanganyika, Uganda and Kenya in East Africa. A small group of refugees headed to Mexico. Three ships, carrying approximately 5,000 people each, mostly orphans and people working with the orphans, embarked in the Persian Gulf and set sail for the Indian Ocean.

After the two ships crossed the equator, they arrived in Kenya"s Port of Mombassa and nearly 10,000 Poles reached out in Africa travelling with their cattle, initially settling in Nairobi briefly, but later moved on to Tanganyika to find good pastureland for their livestock. And many of them had ended in Tengeru [then known as Duluti] and found it cool to settle, and new way of life began for the Polish refugees in Camp Tengeru, Tanganyika!

However, the exhausting journey which spanned many weeks, at times, left many of refugees weak and sick stemming out from lack of food as many were to die after arrival at Camp Tengeru. And many more died later due to the suffering of malaria and influenza, and they were buried at the cemetery. Camp Tengeru this was the place where several hundred of those Poles had ended their lives, waiting in vain to return home in 1944.

Food supply grown from the fertile farms surrounding the area were easily accessible to the Poles as well as fresh meat from cows and pigs until the year 1950 when the International Refugees Organization began assisting people in locating family members throughout the world.

Some of those who survived and willing to return after the war began their long journey with stops in Nairobi, Italy and Germany and on to the United States. A few of them secured Tanzanian citizenship and destined their life in the country. May 9 every year is now marked to commemorate freedom and the end of Second World War which claimed about 6 million Polish lives.

Many tourists from Poland who visits Arusha take time to visit the Tengeru cemetery and November 2, every year is commemorated by a prayer to remember the dead. About 300 Polish make their pilgrim visit to the cemetery ever year and the Counsellor of the Republic of Poland takes care of the cemetery.
Extract ID: 5906